\n
Bianca Fernandez, a former pre-law student turned digital marketer, never thought she\u2019d be on a reality TV show\u2014let alone win one.<\/p>\n
Fernandez is the inaugural champion of On Brand with Jimmy Fallon<\/em>, a competition reality series on NBC that pits 10 contestants against each other to pitch creative campaigns to national brands like Dunkin\u2019, Southwest Airlines, and KitchenAid. In each episode, the group was presented with a brand client looking for bold campaign ideas, and after ideating and pitching everything from jingles and commercials to merchandise, one contestant won the account\u2014while, often, another was sent home. The eight-episode season led to one final pitch with Therabody that named Fernandez the winner of a $100,000 cash prize, a feature in Adweek, a trip to Cannes Lions, and the title of Innovator of the Year.<\/p>\nThe show cast an ensemble of characters with various backgrounds in marketing, ranging from graphic design and screenwriting experience to content creation and owning their own agencies. Fernandez came in with several years of experience in social marketing, including stints at TikTok and beauty brands Tarte and Personal Day. That experience, she said, is what made her feel like On Brand<\/em> could be the reality TV show for her.<\/p>\n\u201cIt was like my daytime job was turned into a prime-time television show,\u201d Fernandez told Marketing Brew. \u201cSo it\u2019s kind of like, why not? Let\u2019s do something different.\u201d<\/p>\n
TV-like ads? Nah, ad-like TV<\/h2>\n
As a cast member on the show\u2019s first season, Fernandez didn\u2019t have a benchmark to set her expectations up against, so she placed her faith in Fallon and his cohost Bozoma Saint John, a former executive at companies like Netflix, Uber, and PepsiCo and a current Real Housewife of Beverly Hills.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, they will not steer me in the wrong direction. If they\u2019re part of this, this has to be good,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
On Brand<\/em> isn\u2019t Fallon\u2019s first romp with the advertising industry. The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon<\/em> is rather friendly to ad placements, and Fallon said in previous interviews that it was through working on his late-night show\u2019s ad integrations that On Brand <\/em>was born.<\/p>\n\u201cI was trying to think of bits for the show. I think of them all the time for different companies, and I go, \u2018Wouldn\u2019t it be fun if everyone could do this?\u2019\u201d Fallon said in Adweek around the time of the series premiere. \u201cAnd I think these brands will be psyched that they\u2019re getting a 45-minute commercial.\u201d<\/p>\n
While On Brand<\/em> held obvious appeal for brands to get involved, Fernandez thought it also appealed to evolving audience tastes.<\/p>\n\n
\n
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\u201cPeople have such a draw to understanding behind the brand and behind the scenes of marketing,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve seen that so much on TikTok, with people giving their marketing takes and really diving into the campaigns of brands.\u201d<\/p>\n
The life of a show marketer<\/h2>\n
Throughout the season, Fernandez won accounts and impressed executives at brands like Sonic and KitchenAid before clinching the win with Therabody. She credited her successes throughout the season to her real-world marketing experience, but other times, her more research-based and methodical approach didn\u2019t always mesh with the marketing-meets-TV setting.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome things that would have worked in the marketing real-life world maybe were heightened or just played differently in the context of On Brand<\/em>,\u201d she said, referencing other contestants\u2019 inclination to lean into emotion as one method to appeal to the judges, who were brand execs themselves.<\/p>\nOther aspects of the show deviated from the reality of working with clients for the drama of TV, she told us, including a lack of a back-and-forth with brand executives at the goal-setting stage and the extremely limited one-hour ideation timeline. Other more practical elements\u2014which included longer feedback sessions from Fallon, Saint John, and the execs\u2014did happen, but weren\u2019t always displayed in the final episode edit.<\/p>\n
Fernandez said she felt that the show served two purposes: helping to shape her and her fellow contestants\u2019 marketing skills, while also serving as marketing for the brands themselves\u2014something that she thinks is one of the more clever elements of the production.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw someone, when [On Brand<\/em>] first got announced, who was like, \u2018Oh, this is late-stage capitalism,\u2019 but really, this concept of brands being at the forefront of entertainment has been around forever,\u201d she said. \u201cThat full-circle entertainment-advertising connection has existed for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\nWith her winnings in hand, Fernandez said this is the first time in a long time that she doesn\u2019t have an exact five-year plan ahead of her. Her stint as a commercial director on the show has whet her appetite for more producing and directing work, and for now, she\u2019s set to be Therabody\u2019s creative-in-residence to collaborate on campaigns moving forward, an opportunity made possible through her participation in the show, though not officially part of the prize package.<\/p>\n
As for On Brand<\/em>\u2019s marketing team, she has one suggestion for them.<\/p>\n\u201cI think they\u2019ve been doing a great job on the socials and recapping it, but I would like them to hire me for next season,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bianca Fernandez, a former pre-law student turned digital marketer, never thought she\u2019d be on a reality TV show\u2014let alone win one. Fernandez is the inaugural champion of On Brand with Jimmy Fallon, a competition reality series on NBC that pits 10 contestants against each other to pitch creative campaigns to national brands like Dunkin\u2019, Southwest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing"},"yoast_head":"\n
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